The assignment: Think of THE song that most inspires you to write, whether it gives you an idea for a story, script or just puts you into a better frame of mind AND/OR peek into the lyrics and find a verse that sums up the theme of whatever project it is you’re working on. If possible, post a video of the song to convey to readers the full context of the song and the mood it puts you into. Finally, send the assignment to five other writers to do as well.

Here’s mine:

Sheryl Crow, “The Difficult Kind”

Tell it to me slow, tell me with your eyes
If anyone should know, how to let it slide
I swear I can see you, comin up the drive
There ain’t nothing like regret to remind you you’re alive

If you could only see, what love has made of me
Then I’d no longer be, in your mind, the difficult kind
Cause ‘babe, I’ve changed

This is an easy one for me, but probably not very interesting. I absolutely never ever ever listen to music before or during writing. Music totally derails my writing efforts. If I listen to music before writing I wind up channeling the tone of the music instead of crafting something closer to original. If I listen to music while I write, I wind up typing the words to the music instead of being able to come up with anything remotely like a sentence.

I see other people listen to music while they write and I am astounded at their ability to do two things at once. I can barely manage to do even one thing at once.

In short: If the room’s not quiet, I can’t write.

PS: I find Laurie’s comment — above — really interesting. She’s one of a lot of people who’s mentioned a NEED to write. See, I’m not like that at all. It’s really easy for me to not write. Maybe that’s why she can listen to music while she writes and I can’t: she evidently has something like a hunger to write, so music doesn’t distract her. I, on the other hand, am never hungry for anything that doesn’t contain both potatoes and cheese, and welcome any distraction that lets me put writing off for a while.

Music and writing pretty much go together for me. Mostly while hashing out a scene I’ll choose music that matches the tone of what I’m writing. While I’m typing out the story, I need silence about half the time, depends on if there’s a lot of dialogue or not.

For readers of this thread, “Max” is Celluloid Blonde – check my blogroll for a link to her page.